Alix Ayme French, 1894-1989
69.8 x 62.2 cm
This drawing, soulfully rendered by a French artist who witnessed the brutal death of her son in a military execution by the Chinese, yielded three similar portraits of the female Congolese subject. One of the three portraits was acquired for the permanent collection by the Evergreen Museum at Johns Hopkins University in 2012 and is depicted in the artist's first US exhibition catalogue.
It seemed fitting to start the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection here with this image, with this indigenous African woman and to build the dialogue of this truly American collection from here - we are striving to answer the many questions that are apparent the eyes of the subject. We are honored to seek the answers through the work and the lives of important twentieth and twenty-first century African American Artists. - Hilary Pierce (June 2013)
